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Abstract

This paper examines the appropriation of writing as an integral part of the colonial encounter in Achebe’s Arrow of God (1964). Achebe’s hero (Ezeulu) realizes the pitfalls of orality in the confrontation with Europeans who are equipped with writing and its accompaniments. The coming of the West is therefore welcomed as Ezeulu quickly sides with them to empower himself against the contending forces of a disintegrating society. I argue that, as the Chief Priest of Ulu, Ezeulu is aware of the flaws in the oral nature of his religious pantheon and by sending his son Oduche to learn the art of writing he appropriates the technology of writing in order to prevail against his enemies and ineluctably allows his god’s surrender to the Christian God. This absorption into a greater pantheon is facilitated through the appropriation of writing and the sacred book.

Abstract

Throughout her writing career, Jeanette Winterson has experimented with her life experience, revisiting in particular the complex relationship with her adoptive mother, Mrs W, in such works as Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), Sexing the Cherry (1989), and Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal (2011). This article examines the complex mother-daughter relationship between Jeanette and Mrs W to illustrate the birth of a feminist writer. In answer to her mother’s confiscation of her birth narrative, Jeanette Winterson has fictionalized Mrs W to alter traditional narrative paradigms she deemed repressive. The process has allowed the daughter to open up an enunciative space for herself through performative utterances: “I’m telling you stories. Trust me.” Finally, the parallel drawn between Mrs Winterson and Mrs Thatcher in the former’s fictional avatars highlights specifically the personal political itinerary of the feminist writer.

Abstract

Known for her lyrical evocations of the American South, Eudora Welty’s short story “Where is the Voice Coming From?” is unique in her oeuvre for both its intense topicality and its direct treatment of the Southern racism that is often only obliquely acknowledged in her fiction. This article examines how Welty maintains her characteristically deep sympathy for her characters, and her profound attention to detail, while narrating the event of a horrific and racist murder. Furthermore, by providing biographical details of the real life “Goat Dykeman”, G.W. Hydrick, informed readers see how even in a brief story about contemporary events, Welty is continually aware of regional history and assumptions, and she uses details, sometimes very subtly, to attach layers of meaning to her stories.

Abstract

The author of this paper lays out a system of hermeneutics based on the idea of morbidity aimed at checking the commitment (or the lack thereof) of individual subjects to Victorian ethics. The system stems from Thomas Carlyle’s political agenda based on his concept of “hero worship”. The system is then deployed in order to probe into the purported morbidity of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. According to the author of this paper, the character of Marlow represents a curious mixture of the heroic archetype proposed by Carlyle, combined with new critical standpoints from other philosophical programmes (specifically Nietzsche’s) proposed at the end of the nineteenth century. Firstly, the author of this paper tackles the prototype of the hero (a sort of medium between reality and Divine Truth) Thomas Carlyle posited in his On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841). The author of this paper then describes how Marlow shares some of the hero’s features (most notably social responsibility and work ethic), but fails to embody the main trait of Carlyle’s “great men”, namely, their ability to recognize Divine Truth. Indeed, rather than asserting the existence of the Truth, Marlow’s narrative reveals the existence of multiple truths, thus creating a sort of politically morbid revision of Carlyle’s formula.

Abstract

Published anonymously in 1814, Waverley; Or ‘Tis Sixty Years Hence is a historical novel by Sir Walter Scott which unfolds the story of a young English soldier, Edward Waverley, and his journey to Scotland. Regarded as the first historical novel, it contains elements of modernity, heralding a new upcoming era in England. Scott obviously displays the concept of the modern/modernity differently from the perception that writers are conveying today, but he hints at the emergence of a society detached from feudal customs in several aspects through the issue of union between England and Scotland. Highlighting the modern characteristics of Walter Scott’s Waverley, this paper argues that Scott employs elements of modernity in his novel long before their disclosure in literature and politics.

Abstract

The present study is concerned with the representation of ideologies in fiction. It attempts an analysis of Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement and aims at revealing the ideologies of war and social class by analysing textual conceptual functions. It applies a critical stylistic analysis based on Jeffries’s (2010) framework. The study addresses the following questions:

How are the concepts of war and social class presented in the novel?

Which categories are used to introduce war and social class in the novel? What is the linguistic realization of the categories selected?

What does Atonement reveal about British society and the period during which the events took place?

To what extent are McEwan’s ideologies reflected in the novel?

The results of the study show that war and social class constitute an important part in the novel. There are references to them from the very beginning of the novel. They are presented ideologically through the categories of naming and describing, negating, representing actions/events/states, prioritizing, hypothesizing, implying and assuming, presenting others’ speech and thoughts, and representing time, space and society. These categories employed specific linguistic realizations that helped the author achieve his purpose and influence readers. The results also reveal the way Atonement portrays the circumstances of British society before, during, and after the Second World War. Moreover, they indicate the existence of historically accurate information related to war. Finally, the results demonstrate that the representations of war and social class in Atonement are ideologically loaded. These representations reflect McEwan’s own attitude toward history, war, and social class.

Abstract

This paper interprets the “green” poetry of Andrew Marvell (1621-1678). It discusses the main features of the Renaissance pastoral, especially the standard elements of the genre and its ethical aspects. Methodologically, it combines ecocritical reading with the philosophical concepts of harmony, based on Pythagorean harmonic lore. It shows the paradoxes of Marvell’s treatment of the pastoral, especially the dramatic contrast between the meditative and comforting aspect of the pastoral genre and the impossibility of reconciling the harmonious ethos of the natural world with the plagues of human love and its finality.

Abstract

The implications of the colonialist discourse, which suggested that the colonized is a person “whose historical, physical, and metaphysical geography begins with European memory” (Thiong’o, 2009), urged postcolonial writers to correct these views by addressing the issues from their own perspectives. The themes of history and communal/national past thus play a prominent role in postcolonial literature as they are inevitably interwoven with the concept of communal identity. In Petals of Blood (1977), the Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o explores the implications of social change as brought about by the political and economic development during the post-independence period. This paper seeks to examine the crucial relation between personal and communal/national history and relate it to the writer’s views of principal legacies of colonialism. As Thiong’o states: “My interest in the past is because of the present and there is no way to discuss the future or present separate from the past” (Thiong’o, 1975). Clearly, the grasping of the past and one’s identification with it seems fundamental in discussing national development. As Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s narratives are always situated in the realm of political and historical context, blending fiction with fact, this paper also aims to elaborate on the implications of his vision.

Abstract

Arthur Leared’s Morocco and the Moors (1876) and Budgett Meakin’s Life in Morocco and Glimpses Beyond (1905) are two less-examined imperial travel texts on precolonial Morocco. These two travelogues are British (Irish and English, respectively) – a fact that casts on them from the beginning the special taste of this genre which is a British specialty par excellence. Coming from the same political and cultural backdrops, Leared and Meakin peregrinated into Morocco in a precolonial time when it was still perceived as the “Lands of the Moors”. These two travellers responded to moments of interactions with the Moors as a culturally, socially and religiously different other. Both these Victorian travellers were aware of the fact of empire as their travelogues function as fodder to energize the discursive grandiloquence of empire. They stress an ethnocentric view in depicting Moroccans and their culture, and they communicate their observations through an interpretative framework, or in Foucauldian terminology, through the “discourses” provided by their culture. This paper undertakes the examination of these two travellers’ perception of otherness; the approach is to question and bring to the fore the rhetorical and discursive strategies as well as modes of representation Leared and Meakin deploy in their encounters with the Moors in Pre-Protectorate Morocco.

Abstract

This paper deals with terminology as a characteristic feature of the language used in science and technology. The lexical units in question serve the communication needs and demands of particular discourse communities, i.e., experts in different branches of science and specializations. Terminology precisely describes reality, carries specific information on the phenomena and relationships between them and helps to avoid shifts in meaning during the process of communication. In comparison with other spheres of life where shifts in meaning are common, in science and technology, changes in the information transferred are unacceptable and may lead to serious consequences. This paper focuses on various aspects and approaches to this part of the lexical system. Examples from the English language for Electrical Engineering and Communication Technologies provide an insight into different criteria for classifying units as terms, lexical patterns and semantic relationships between the individual constituents. Other features, qualities and functions of terminology, such as the stabilizing reality, interconnection between explicitness and implicitness or description of progress reflecting a unique attitude to reality are also discussed.